SRINAGAR: Abu Usmaan alias Abu Adnan alias Doctor, top commander of Lashkar-e-Taiba, shot dead after a 12-hour encounter. The Army had all the names right, except they shot the wrong man. The Poonch incident is now unraveling. Two men - a special police officer (SPO) and a Territorial Army jawan - have been arrested and charged with murder. And the LeT 'commander' was a man picked up from Rajouri and then...
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Talking To Maoists by Nirmalangshu Mukherji
After the brutal murder of Azad, is there any hope for well-meaning routine calls for “dialogue” and “peace talks”? What can the "civil society" do as a serious, real intervention? It is reported that the decades-old talks with Naga insurgent groups has made some progress recently (See “Differences ‘narrowed’,” Times of India, July 19, 2011). One reason why talks have a chance in these cases is that separatism comes in...
More »Money doesn’t make the landowner fonder by EAS Sarma
The country’s first legislation on land acquisition, rehabilitation and resettlement is out as a first draft. Here is a sharp critique of the bill THE GOVERNMENT has made public the new Draft National Land Acquisition and Rehabilitation & Resettlement Bill, 2011, which FW has run in these columns over three days. This is what I think of it. In terms of the definition of public purpose, the Bill is more colonial...
More »Valley’s first, RTI seeks details behind Sopore custodial killing by Peerzada Ashiq
Right to Information Act might be a tool to fight corruption in rest of the country but in Kashmir, for the first time, it will seek unraveling of the mystery behind the custodial killing. Kashmir RTI Movement chairman Dr Raja Muzaffar Bhat on Monday filed an RTI in the Sopore custodial killing where 28-year-old Nazim Rashid died immediately after being arrested by the police. “There were 117 killings last year. Nobody knows...
More »Mamata announces Sops for Muslims
-IANS West Bengal Chief Minister Mamata Banerjee, unveilinging scholarships and Sops for the state's minorities, on Saturday accused the previousLeft government of sowing confusion by announcing a "hurried and erroneous" quota in government jobs for Muslims. Addressing a programme organised by the West Bengal Minorities Development and Finance Corporation, Banerjee declared that loans totalling Rs.82 crore will be given this year to the minorities, besides scholarships and stipends worth Rs.122 crore. "This...
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